TL;DR,

• Clarrio.ai, an AI-powered health platform achieving 78.9% accuracy in predicting seizures, has raised over $1 million and expanded to Netcare Hospitals in South Africa.
• Founded in 2017 to help manage epilepsy, the platform now connects 300+ wearable devices using CNNs and LSTMs for predictive health analytics.
• Operating on a B2B model charging hospitals $$-\$$1,178 per patient annually, the platform provides free access to patients and doctors while pharmaceutical companies and insurers pay

AI has taken root in Africa, with many governments, startups and various industries applying and even relying on it. But what of AI in Healthcare? Healthcare institutions in Africa are facing worker shortages, systemic issues and outdated curricula.

Clarrio, a platform leveraging AI to solve real-world healthcare, has its sights set on Africa, challenging how we approach diagnostics and data management across the country.

Clarrio’ s Story From Personal Crisis to Predictive Health Analytics

The initial story of Clarrio.ai started as a niche solution for epilepsy known as Knowlepsy.

Back in 2017, Firas Rhaiem wanted to help his sister manage epilepsy. Despite not being a doctor, he had a vision to create a solution that would predict her seizures before they could happen. A noble desire kick-started the development of a comprehensive platform transforming physiological, behavioural, and environmental signals into actionable healthcare insights.

Eventually, Firas succeeded in shifting her sister’s weekly seizures to going years without one.

For context, normally, patients with chorinix conditions often rely on 24/7 monitoring to ensure their proper response time. However, this is not feasible, especially in Africa, where hospital bills and care are usually limited to about a few visits per week at best. Doctors usually depend on patient accounts during examinations, but what could predictive health analytics do?

RELATED: Generative AI Carbon Footprint Threatens Global Climate Change Sustainability Goals

Dr Shaheed Gora, a neurologist based in Johannesburg, met with Rhaiem in February 2024 and had firsthand experience testing what would soon become Clarrio.ai. The products worked impressing the doctor to a point he ended up joining the team to provide his expertise and improve the product.

The Technical Framework: LLMs for Patient Data Analysis

Clarrio’s KnowRisk application tackles this problem head-on. The platform connects with over 300 different wearable devices—from Apple Watches to basic Xiaomi bands—collecting critical data points that would otherwise disappear between appointments.

The KnowRisk application is the beating heart of its suite. The application collects information from more than 300 wearable devices(Apple Watches to Fitbits, and Huawei smart trackers). As per the platforms, chronic disease monitoring through connected devices has yielded significant results.

The platform then employs Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to extract features from complex health datasets, converting real-time data and historical data into patterns for recognition. Meanwhile, Long Short-Term Memory networks help the system remember prior information when processing new input. This generally forms the basis of predictive analysis.

The use of LLMs for patient data analysis crunches down data into meaningful insights, resulting in predictive warnings for patients and hospitals. Its clinical results(in collaboration with the Hamad Medical Corporation Medical Research Centre) have proven worthwhile with its 12-month study demonstrating a 78.9% accuracy in predicting seizure triggers, leading to 34% fewer seizures and 30% fewer emergency hospitalizations.

AI in Healthcare: The Role of Predictive Health Analytics

There are various sceptics around advanced AI in healthcare solutions, especially on its application in Africa. Clarrio suggests a different narrative. Instead of simply recording that, the system actively looks for patterns and forecasts upcoming medical events or flare-ups of chronic conditions.

It provides doctors and researchers with the data they’ve been missing. The technology is an assistant rather than a replacement.

“ I always want to highlight that we don’t replace doctors, we don’t do diagnosis, but we provide data to doctors and they can adjust the treatment plan with AI to make it more personalised,” Rhaiem shared.

The platform only requires basic internet connectivity, making it viable for even regions with limited infrastructure. Doctors who see patients every few months can access a clearer movie for the patient’s health rather than a fragmented snapshot.

A B2B Model for Scaling Impact

Unlike many consumer-focused health apps, Clarrio operates solely on a business-to-business (B2B) basis. The platform is currently live in Netcare Hospitals in South Africa, providing continuous monitoring for chronic disease patients. Additionally, it improves pediatric and women ‘s neurologic care through predictive analytics in Sidra Medicine in Qatar.

Within this model, patients and doctors access the platform for free, while hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and insurers pay annual license fees ranging from $942 to $1,178 per patient. It additionally has a one-time integration fee of $25,000. This pricing might sound steep for Africa; however, the platform is still in its nascent stages, trying to expand more throughout the region.

RELATED: The Rise of AI as a Guardian in the NFT Ecosystem

Since its founding, Clarrio has raised over $1 million from 25+ business angels and executives from tech giants, including Microsoft and Google. Launch Africa, a prominent venture capital firm, is participating in their current seed funding round.

Its real-time health data analytics serves over 500 patients in Tunisia, South Africa and Qatar. Currently, the firm has a minimum cohort contract of 200–300 licenses, and the company is targeting $2.9 million(€2.5 million) in annual recurring revenue within the next 18 months.